Denaturing
by Mauve Alert
Summary: He's the Doctor, and nothing he touches can walk away unscathed. The Doctor postDoomsday, slightly silly at times, not a romance. Minor revisions as of 6.1.07
1. Inner Demons

_Title: _Denaturing

_Summary_: Nothing he touches walks away unscathed.

_Disclaimer_: It doesn't belong to me. . . I'm just having a bit of fun.

_ A/N: I was experimenting in the Doctor Who fandom and this is the result. This is also my first posted fanfic in ages. Do tell me what you think. : )_

_Apologies in advance for the OCs._

Updated with minor revisions 5-31-07.

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**Denaturing**

I. _Inner Demons_

The Doctor has figured out what kind of man he is.

"Leave that body _now!_" He waves the sonic screwdriver imperiously and barks the order as if there is an actual, legit reason that it should be obeyed.

Other than, of course, that he is the Doctor and one should do as the Doctor orders. The Doctor winces as soon as this thought passes his mind - he really should be able to come up with something cleverer than that.

His latest adversary laughs, a sound that would be much more frightening if it weren't coming from the mouth of a fifteen-year-old human girl. Perhaps it's best that this _is_ the source of the laugh, because things are not looking good and any more fear would considerably hinder the brilliant plan that the Doctor will be coming up with any minute now.

It is all, as usual, his ship's fault. After dropping off his last companion - a twitchy Scottish chap who'd lasted all of two weeks - the Doctor had set course for Cardiff, with the vague idea of refueling (though the TARDIS doesn't really need it) and maybe making sure that Torchwood is behaving itself. This, of course, is only his cover story; actually he just wanted to take a few days off to wander and remember. Why he needed a cover story when he has no one to tell it to is a mystery even to him.

In hindsight, that he'd actually thought he could have an uneventful vacation is laughable. He isn't the kind of man who could take a vacation.

So instead of Cardiff, the TARDIS has landed (read: crashed) him into Boston, 2002. The Doctor usually tries to avoid this time in America; in his view, the entire country went insane at the turn of the millenium, and it took them most of the decade to sort out what combination of happy pills would set the nation to rights. And frankly, the temptation to meddle - and thus completely alter the course of humanity's history - is far too strong. So generally, he spends his visits to the early 21st century on the other side of the Atlantic.

Trust the TARDIS to take him when and where he least wants to be and throw him immediately into trouble.

The girl's name is Anna, and she has blonde hair that reminds him of Romana's, in her second regeneration. The Doctor met her father, Henrik, while wandering Boston Common and reflecting that he'd liked the city much better the last time he'd been - even though the Indian costume was rather silly and it really had been perfectly good tea.

Immediately, the Doctor pegged Henrik as the kind of person that he seems to draw like flies to a corpse - in over his head in trouble and desperate. The first clue - he came running up to the Doctor, grabbed him by the lapels of his natty pinstriped suit jacket, and said, "Have you seen my daughter? I can't find her!"

The Doctor had agreed to help the distraught man, partly because his name reminds the Doctor of how he met Rose - blowing up the shop that she worked at - and also because he is the Doctor and that's the kind of man he is.

Of course, because he is the Doctor, it turns out that this isn't a simple case of a teenager wandering off.

No, the girl had to go and get herself possessed.

The fifteen-year-old is now playing host to a particularly nasty sort of semi-sentient, incorporeal parasite, and the Doctor is waiting for inspiration to strike, preferably in the form of a fool-proof plan that doesn't result in the death of himself, Henrik, or the girl.

It's not striking.

This is the kind of man the Doctor is: a man in pinstripes and spectacles, waving a sonic screwdriver at a possessed teenager toting a 25th century assault rifle as he tries to figure out just what the hell he's going to do next.

He's a lucky man, isn't he? That's what he said, though lately he hasn't believed it anymore.

But he hasn't really got anything left to lose, so he selects a random setting on his sonic screwdriver, points it at the girl's rolled-up eyes, and he says, "If you do not leave that body, I will _make you leave it_."

If he is lucky, the parasite might just believe that the Doctor isn't bluffing. After all, he _is_ the Doctor, and he kills species - makes them so they never exist. Once in awhile he creates them, too, like in the hospital on New Earth, but does that really make up for the death? It's a question to ponder as he stares at the walls of the TARDIS control room.

"And if I make you leave it, I will also make it so that you can _never_ take another host again," he threatens, because if he recalls correctly, this particular species thirsts only for one thing - a body, a real, tangible body.

_Where do I go_? asks the parasite. _You will force me from every body I take_. It doesn't speak in words, just concepts and images sent telepathically.

"I don't care," the Doctor snaps. "Get back in your ship and leave, and tell all your little friends - this world is off-limits. This _species_ is off-limits."

_Or what_?

"Or I will _denature your enzymes_!" the Doctor threatens, coming to the crux of his brilliant plan. "I will take them _out_ of their optimal ranges, and their tertiary structures will _unravel_, and their active sites will _collapse_, and they will _never _catalyze any chemical reactions _ever__again_!"

This is, of course, bullshit. The parasite is incorporeal and therefore _has_ no enzymes, but it sounds very good and the alien is only classified as _semi_-sentient anyway.

And to his complete, utter astonishment, the parasite leaves.

As it goes, the Doctor begins to laugh, because he's done it, and they're all alive, and Anna has dropped the assault rifle, and he can just _imagine_ how Rose would have reacted to him performing an honest-to-God exorcism, which is at least as good as the cat nuns and may even trump the werewolf.

Anna sways on her feet, looking pale and confused, and throws up all over her shoes, the ground, and the discarded gun. Seeming shocked, she stares at the mess with wide, red eyes and starts to cry. She collapses into her father's arms and sobs uncontrollably, face wet and red and _hers_, beautiful because it is her own and not some alien parasite's mask.

Still laughing like a maniac, the Doctor throws his arms around both of them, and he shouts, "Fantastic!"

She hiccups and stares at him. "Who're you?"

"The Doctor," he answers, and grins.

-TBC-


	2. Big Blue Box

_A/N - Big thanks to Rosesbud for her review. : ) I tried to update sooner but the site wasn't letting me upload documents for some reason._

Minor revisions, 5-31-07

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II. _Big Blue Box_

He gives them a ride home in the TARDIS.

Anna walks in behind the Doctor, barefoot and wrapped up in his long brown coat. Her face is still wet from the tears and the Doctor remembers why he keeps dragging these apes around time and space. It's because they are constantly in awe. It's to see the wonder lighting up this teenager's eyes as she looks about the TARDIS control room in absolute enchantment.

Henrik, who has already been inside the ship once, feigns nonchalance but beams at his daughter all the same, as if to say, "Aren't you proud of me for finding this guy to rescue you?"

The Doctor walks them up to the front door of their little brownstone house. Henrik has lost his keys. He struggles to recall where he's put the spare and the Doctor does not take out his sonic screwdriver; Anna is shaking her head and sending the Doctor exasperated glances, as if to say, "He rescues me from alien possession and then can't find his keys" and the expression screams _teenager_.

That's when he makes his decision.

"You could forget the keys," he suggests. When Henrik looks at him in confusion, the Doctor elaborates, "Travel about with me for a bit. See the universe, have an adventure."

Anna gasps. "Can we?" She turns pleading, excited eyes to her father, and says breathlessly, "Oh, Dad, can we?" She is fifteen, and she has had an alien in her mind and seen into the mind of the alien, and she has walked inside the TARDIS, and the Doctor knows that she cannot bear the thought of going back to homework and boys and reality television without knowing what else there is for her to see.

Henrik hesitates. He glances at the Doctor's grin, and stares for a long moment at Anna's tearstained, hopeful face. "Of course we can," he says at last, and Anna's smile could illuminate the dark side of the moon.

The Doctor looks at her, this eager teenager, and wonders how he could have ever thought her hair was like Romana's - it is a completely different shade. Smiling at her, he says, "Well?"

"Where's it go?"

"Anywhere. Anywhen." Except for a few that he'd dearly like to go, but he's a happy man and can't dwell on that.

He holds out his hand, and she takes it hesitantly, lacing her fingers in his like a child clutching to her father as they cross the street. The feel of her hand is completely different, completely unlike anyone else's. The Doctor knows that he will love her; he loves them all, each in a different way.

The Doctor smiles down at his newest companion and leads her home.

- - -

The TARDIS is hurtling through the vortex and the Doctor is wondering where they'll go next when Anna returns to the control room. He glances up at her. "Found yourself a room?"

She nods. "Okay if I write in this?" she asks, holding up a small notebook. "I found it in my room."

The Doctor sends her a winning grin. "If it was in your room, it's meant for you," he says. The TARDIS is like that.

"Okay." To his surprise, she sits right down on the grill floor and starts scribbling. "Dad's in his room, I think," she reports as she writes, then asks, "Is it still today? How do you keep time here, anyway?"

_Time Lord_, the Doctor thinks. How _doesn't_ he keep time? "However you like."

"Can I run on EST?"

The Doctor shrugs. "If you want."

"The _when _I left was October seventh," Anna thinks out loud. The Doctor waits her out. "According to my watch, it's ten P.M. So in two hours, is it, like, the eighth? Even if we're not then now? If Christmas were two days from now at home, in forty-eight hours from now is it Christmas here?"

"Technically, there is no _here_. We're not anywhere. Or anywhen." He looks down at Anna's confused expression, and sighs. "Keep time however you want."

"What if I lose track? How'll I know when my birthday is?"

"I'll keep track for you," the Doctor says.

"You can do that?"

"Of course I can."

She finishes whatever she had been writing with a flourish. "Doctor, what are you? Like, human?"

_A killer_. _A time-traveler. A creator. A doctor. . . __I don't know_. . . "No. I'm a Time Lord," he answers. No, he isn't - the Time Lords are gone. The Time Lords never existed; he never was one. But there is no way to explain this to Anna. The teenager is confused enough as it is - she thinks that the word 'wicked' modifies adjectives and she hates tea.

"What's that mean?"

"Not all that much, really," the Doctor replies. "Whassat you're writing?"

She lets him change the subject. "Dear Diary," she reads. "Went for a walk with Dad today. Was mind-raped by an alien. Exorcised by a geek with a British accent. Geek calls himself 'the Doctor' and lives in a blue box. Moved into blue box after Dad lost his keys. Note to self: buy new shoes."

The Doctor laughs a little, but is sad a little, too. He knows what she's doing - she's trying to make what happened to her a joke. It is less real that way, less painful. The Doctor knows because he does it too.

"Geek!"

"What? It's kinda cute." The statement isn't flirting, not like Rose or Jack would do. She's just a teenager being a teenager.

"Cute!"

"What would you prefer?"

"Dashing. Roguishly good-looking. Han Solo but not as dirty." It's all in good fun, and the Doctor finds himself laughing. It's just teasing, almost like she's his favorite kid sister, and the dynamic is refreshing in its own way.

Anna giggles uncontrollably, which was his intent. It takes her a moment to gain control of herself. "You got a girlfriend, Doctor?"

"Nope."

"Boyfriend?"

The Doctor scowls. "No." A thought occurs to him. "Do you?"

She starts to giggle again, which may be a typical teenaged reaction to this sort of thing or might not. "I did. It was creepy, he knew me so well it was like he was _inside my mind_." Hysterical, she gasps, "But it turns out he only wanted me for my body. Jerk. So glad you exorcised him." As she speaks the laughing turns into tears, and in a few moments she's curled up on the metal grating, sobbing uncontrollably.

Demons and werewolves and Daleks, the Doctor can handle, but sobbing teenagers are beyond his abilities. Feeling an unfamiliar sense of inadequacy, he carefully steps out into the hallway where Henrik is standing by the door, listening. He's been there for awhile, the Doctor knows.

He speaks quietly. "If it weren't for her, you'd be back in that brownstone." The Doctor knows a lot of things. Henrik nods, once, curtly, and looks away.

The Doctor claps him on the shoulder. "Good man," he says, and leaves Henrik to do one of the few things that the Doctor can't.

-TBC-


	3. Falling

_Title: _Denaturing

_Summary_: Explosions are like snowflakes: no two are exactly the same.

_Disclaimer_: It doesn't belong to me. . . I'm just having a bit of fun.

_ A/N_: Thanks to my lovely reviewers! This is a rather short bit, but I think it's one of the better ones.

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III. _Falling_

In the past nine centuries, the Doctor has seen a lot of things, so much that it's impossible to remember everything.

But no matter how many more times he regenerates, he will never forget Anna's expression as she is pinned to the ground under her dying father's body.

It is one of those moments that happens both slowly and all too quickly - Henrik, shielding Anna with his own body, his determination as he takes the fatal hit, Anna's horrified face as father and daughter fall, together, to the ground. It seems like a long, long time that she lies there, pure shock on her face and horror in her eyes, but not even a split second passes before the Doctor is pulling her up, away.

_Run_, he tells her.

_Daddy_, she cries, reaching, but he pulls her away. One heart screams for him to let her go, let her kneel by her father's side and weep and keen, but the other drags her away so that Henrik's sacrifice, all of his sacrifices, aren't wasted.

They flee from the blazing weapons and pursuing enemies, but as they duck around a corner the Doctor and Anna both peer around it, looking back. They pretend that they're checking out how many are following them but really they look at Henrik, dead Henrik. The moment takes forever but it is fleeting, fragile.

_Good man_, the Doctor thinks.

Anna whimpers and that delicate, frail moment breaks, they are running, running, running. . .

He gets them out, like he always gets them out - with a brilliant plan, at the last minute - but it is not enough because there is a piece of Anna that will always be there, lying on the cold metal floor pinned under Henrik's body.

Her diary entry that day reads: _Dear Diary,_

_Dad killed by space monsters with big guns. Doctor saved us, as usual. Brilliant plan, but when's it not? Explosion v. v. cool._

_Note to self: Buy new jacket._

- - -

As they flee the explosion - beautiful, terrible, exquisite explosion - the TARDIS takes them clear across the universe, to a time when humans and chimps have yet to evolve from their common ancestor. It's a pit stop, a repair stop. The tired old ship perches precariously on a cliff face, an apt metaphor, and Anna sits and stares out across the rocky landscape as the Doctor repairs the TARDIS with spit and prayer and chewing gum.

The world's distant blue sun casts an eerie light on Anna's face as it sets. The Doctor, covered in bits of duct tape, sits beside her in silence. Henrik had wanted to go home to his pretty little house, his normal life in which his daughter only thought of homework and boys and reality TV, but he'd wanted to see Anna smile more. Now he is dead, because of the trouble that follows the Doctor like a lost duckling, on one of the adventures that he hated, and Anna does not smile.

"Do you want me to take you home?" he asks softly, and opts to stare at the glowing skies instead of Anna's face, and he tries to forget her expression as she was pinned beneath Henrik's body but can't.

"What would I do?" Her voice is broken and the Doctor has to look at her. She is crying quietly, as she has for days now. Anna used to sob; now she weeps. "Oh, Doctor, how could I go? What could I do?"

Anna has seen into the mind of an alien and been seen by it. She has walked inside the TARDIS and she has watched her father die so that she could see the universe. She cannot possibly go back to homework and boys and reality TV; this is reality, the TARDIS is home, and the boys in the future and past are much cuter anyway.

The Doctor puts his arm around her and she cries into the breast of his rather natty pinstriped suit, little pieces of duct tape sticking to her cheek and hair. He feels the lumpy rocks beneath the soles of his Chuck Taylors and he remembers the shortest verse in the Bible: _Jesus wept_.

_Dear Diary_, reads Anna's diary, _Duct tape really does fix everything.  
_

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Feedback in any form is much appreciated. :-) 


	4. Shades of Red

_Title: _Denaturing 

_Summary_: Explosions are like snowflakes: no two are exactly the same.

_Disclaimer_: It doesn't belong to me. . . I'm just having a bit of fun.

_ A/N: Okay, I'm nervous about this one. . . not so much the first half as the second half._

_Love and cookies to my reviewers._

Revisions 6-1-07

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IV. _Shades of Red_

For her sweet sixteen, the Doctor takes Anna to see _Star Wars_ at Graumann's Chinese Theater on May 25th, 1977.

She smiles as they wait in line, that smile that could illuminate the dark side of the moon, and fingers the embroidery on the bell-bottoms she found in the TARDIS wardrobe. "I love this movie," she says to the boy in front of them in line, after eye-flirting with him and exclaiming about his sideburns to the Doctor for about five straight minutes.

He is surprised. "You've seen it already?"

In the face of a cute boy, Anna has forgotten that she is in 1977. "You haven't yet? Oh, it's wicked good, 'specially like the part where-"

The Doctor steps in before she does something rash, like altering the course of humanity by revealing that Vader is Luke's father before George Lucas himself even comes up with the idea. "We're going for the second time," he lies smoothly, shooting Anna a warning look.

She scowls briefly at him before turning back to her new friend. "You'll love it," she promises. They are moving forward now and Anna is jittery with excitement. The Doctor smiles, because she is a teenager on her sixteenth birthday, going to a movie and talking to a boy she thinks is cute, and she's not the girl who saw into the alien, the girl who was pinned to the ground under the weight of her father's body, the girl who stared into the blue sunset and wept.

"Hope so, I've been standing in line long enough. . ." The boy grins and scratches at his sideburns. "I'm Tom, by the way."

"Anna." She sticks out her hand and shakes his with exaggerated vigor. He laughs a little and she laughs a little and the Doctor thinks about enzymes, which will denature if they're taken out of their optimal temperature or pH range, but if the conditions are right they'll catalyze a reaction. "Oh," she says, "and this is the Doctor."

Tom shakes the Doctor's hand, like a nervous boy taking a girl out on a first date shakes her father's hand. "Nice to meet you, Doctor. . . ?"

"Just the Doctor," the Doctor and Anna say in unison, which is unintentional but makes the two teenagers laugh.

Tom sits on Anna's other side when they finally get inside the theater, and throughout the movie the Doctor can feel her thrumming beside him, alive.

For once there is no trouble, no aliens, no mortal peril, and it is the Death Star that blows up, not his hearts or Anna's.

_Dear Diary_, Anna reads to him that night over dinner, _I love the '70s._

- - -

Years pass and adventures come and go and eventually Anna stops running on EST. The Doctor has to tell her when Christmas is coming up; she makes it a point to celebrate but doesn't keep a calender.

When she turns nineteen, the age that Rose was when she first came onboard, Anna finds Rose's room. The Doctor has not gone into it since he lost her, so it is preserved exactly as it was the last time she walked out the TARDIS doors, expecting to come back as she always did. It is waiting for her, even though she will never return to it: bits of clothes still lying about the bed unmade, shoes in a corner and knickknacks strewn here and there, moved about a bit by the TARDIS's many crash landings but otherwise untouched.

Now Anna stands in the middle of it, blonde hair that is not like Rose's shoved behind her ears, looking at the teddy bear which sits on the floor next to a pair of black leather boots. The Doctor watches from the doorway and the years-old pain is suddenly new and fresh, and he remembers how Rose was going to stay with him forever.

The Doctor is a Time Lord. He knows that forever doesn't exist.

Rose. The Bad Wolf. She stuck with him through his ninth life and she'd laughed alongside him during this tenth, his first friend after the war ended. And they were that. Friends.

What a beautiful girl, Rose Tyler, the Doctor thinks, and what a beautiful girl Anna is, too, in a different way but there it is.

Anna is nineteen and she still believes in forever.

After a moment, she sees him staring and she looks frightened, like she expects him to yell at her for violating this place as the Doctor has not dared to do in all these years; it is as if she senses that this room is special. The Doctor smiles, and laughs, and says, "Did I ever tell you about Rose Tyler?"

He strides into the room and puts an arm around Anna's shoulder, and they sit on Rose's bed as the Doctor tells her about the time he and a timorous beastie saved Queen Victoria from the werewolf.

As they eat their sandwiches in the kitchen later on, Anna reads from her diary as is their custom.

_Dear Diary_, she reads, and doesn't meet his eyes, _Doctor told me a story today. V. sad. Should I tell him that it's okay to cry sometimes?_

"Time Lords don't cry," the Doctor says. "Our tears are acid and if we cry they burn up our faces."

Anna smiles kind of sadly, a not-quite-teenager who has seen and been seen by the alien, who has watched her father die and _Star Wars _on opening day, and who has walked in the TARDIS and the bedroom of a lost girl. She reaches out and laces her hand in his. "I love you, Doctor," she says. She does not need to interpolate this very simple statement of fact. The Doctor knows that it is not romantic or sexual or needy, this love. It just is.

He grins back, breaking the melancholy because this him cannot stay sad for very long, at least not on the outside. "What is it? My roguish good looks?" As she rolls her eyes, he adds, "Or maybe my irresistable charm?" Anna laughs and life snaps back into that place labelled _normal_, which admittedly is not that normal to anyone but them.


	5. Shredded

_Title: _Denaturing

_Summary_: Explosions are like snowflakes: no two are exactly the same.

_Disclaimer_: It doesn't belong to me. . . I'm just having a bit of fun.

_ A/N_: I'm glad that the last section got such a positive response. . . I'm very hesitant whenever Rose is brought up because it's so hard not to get too sappy when writing about her and the Doctor's relationship.

Speaking of sappy, do tell me if this bit's too much on the corny side.

* * *

V. _Shredded_

"Hide!" the Doctor yells. Anna, a step ahead of him, has already ducked behind a rock, and the Doctor joins her, pulling Jason with him before the creature can tear them to shreds.

Jason hasn't been with them for as long as Anna, and is much less used to running for his life than her and the Doctor. He is panting heavily; they've barely broken a sweat. "But it-"

Anna cuts him off. "It's wicked stupid, it's got no sense'a object permanence," she explains, giving Jason a quick once-over to make sure that he is okay. He takes her hand and kisses it gently; for the moment they are alive.

Ever since Anna and Jason first started. . . whatever it was they have (he doesn't like to think about it), the Doctor hasn't liked it. He isn't her father or brother or lover, so he doesn't really have the right to object, but he can't help but be protective of Anna, his Anna, who has stayed with him for so long.

"We only exist as long as it can see us," Anna finishes. She's seen the future and the past; she's been the parasite's host and the Doctor's companion. He knows that she's capable of making her own decisions, and the Doctor, like dead Henrik, can't really deny her anything, and so she's with Jason whether he likes it or not.

"Right you are, Anna," the Doctor says, proud of her and not just because she remembers the nature of this beast. He beams, but the expression freezes suddenly. Lightning fast, he grabs Anna's shoulder and hurls her to the ground behind him. "Sadly, though, _that_ one _can_ see us."

The creature leers at them, all big teeth and sharp claws. The Doctor whips out his sonic screwdriver, switching the setting to one that effectively blinds the beast, but not before it lashes out and neatly disembowls him and Jason both.

The Doctor is a Time Lord; Jason is human. The Doctor regenerates.

Jason can't.

Anna screams as he changes, screams at the sight of Jason's blood all over her, screams as he manages to drag her back to the TARDIS before collapsing onto the grill floor.

"Anna," he gasps, reaching for her hand. "What... what do I look like?"

She's staring at him, unbelieving; the Doctor is fairly certain she's going into shock. "Your... hair, it's sorta. . . orangy-brownish. . . ."

The Doctor grins. "I'm ginger!" he crows, and passes out.

- - -

As he struggles back to consciousness, the Doctor's impeccable sense of time tells him that it has been a full three days since. . . since.

The Doctor wonders what kind of man he is now.

His abdomen aches dully as he opens his eyes to the fuzzy, unfocused sight of Anna peering worriedly down at him. "What took you so long?" he croaks. The taste of bad tea lingers in his mouth and he feels vaguely like throwing up.

"_What took me so long!_"

"I _left_ instructions. All you had to do was press the big red button labelled 'Emergency' and follow the _instructions_!" He'd hoped to avoid another fiasco like what had happened the _last_ time he'd regenerated. "How long does it take to make a cup of tea?"

"You don't got any tea bags!"

The Doctor pulls a face. "I should think not. You have to use leaves."

"You are so _retarded_!" she shrills. "_I'm an American, I don'no how to make tea!_" She drops her head onto his shoulder and starts to weep. Anna cries silently, now, but he can see her shoulders shake, feel the tears leaking into his shirt.

"Anna. . ." He sits up in the bed and uses new hands, new arms, to pull her close as she mourns. "It's okay. It's okay. . ."

A long time later, she lifts her head and stares at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Jason died," she whispers, sounding strangled. "And you- you died, and you-"

She buries her face in her hands, rubbing at her eyes and wiping tears away. "You're different. You look- different."

"Are you saying I'm ugly?" the Doctor demands indignantly, inwardly panicking. His companions do not deal with regeneration well.

Anna lets out a choked half-laugh, half-sob. "No. Not - not the same, though."

"I'm still me," he says, and wonders if this is the thing that will finally make her want to go. Dread bubbles up in him. "I might look a little different, act a little different, but I'm still the Doctor."

"How. . . different. . . are you?"

_Myopia_, he thinks sourly; his vision hasn't gotten any clearer. "Don't know yet. I might like things I didn't before, that sort of thing. . ." Something dawns on him. "I don't like tea," he realizes.

"What?"

The taste is bitter and hairy in his mouth. Suddenly very, very nervous, he hauls himself out of bed and marches down the corridors to the kitchen. _Maybe it's just Anna's tea_, he hopes. _Anna's from Boston, and they're absolutely horrible when it comes to tea._

The sight awaiting him in the kitchen gave him pause. The room is covered in sodden lumps of tea leaves, puddles of water, and shards of glass.

Anna, following on her heels, says sheepishly, "I broke some cups."

The Doctor is already putting the kettle on. The long minutes it takes to brew the tea are nerve-wracking.

He makes it the way he likes it, the way he's always liked it - no milk, just a touch of lemon. He takes a sip and promptly sprays it back out. "Ugh." Despair fills him. "I don't like tea. I don't believe it. I don't like tea."

He waits for Anna to start mocking him, the coffee-addicted Bostonian that she is, but she is staring at the shards of glass with a stricken expression.

"Anna?" He touches her shoulder and notices that he is shorter than he was before; his pants drag on the floor and he almost trips over them. "You oughta clean this up," he says briskly, "while I go put on some new clothes." Nothing. Why isn't she taking offense? Right now she should start complaining about how she isn't the maid, and that it's his TARDIS and _he_ should clean up. "Anna?"

She jerks away from him as if burned, tears running down her face. Hurt and suddenly angry, the Doctor grabs her by the shoulders. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Oh, wow. That was _mean_. Rude's one thing, but _mean_. . . He recoils and drops his hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-" _be mean_. She's just lost the man she loved - no, two men she loved.

She whimpers, a sound he hasn't heard from her for years. "I don' wanna leave, Doctor."

"Leave?" The Doctor is first startled, then panicked. "Who said anything about leaving? You can't leave!" She will leave him, eventually. They all do. Knowing this doesn't stop him from denying it. Anna can't leave, not yet - there's so much more to see, to know, to live. "Why would you leave?"

"You don' like tea anymore-"

Now, that seems ridiculous, even by the Doctor's standards. It's a shame about the tea, yes, but really, it's not _that_ big of a deal. "You don't like tea either!"

"-you don' like me anymore-"

For once, the Doctor is shocked into silence. He gapes at her for a full minute. "Don't be _ridiculous_!" Anna blinks at him, and is bewildered as he wraps her up in a hug that is both familiar - she is the same - and strange - he is different. "I- that's -"

"Retarded?" Anna suggests hopefully. He has mocked her use of this word on more than one occasion.

"_Wicked_ retarded," the Doctor says, mimicking her Boston accent, which has refused to fade even after all these years.

Anna laughs shakily and withdraws from his hug, carefully avoiding bits of broken glass. "So," she says, pretending not to stare at his new face out of the corners of her eyes, "this is what a Time Lord is."

"This is what a Time Lord is," the Doctor repeats, and knows that it is finally clear to Anna that he is not human.

- - -

They clean up the kitchen and then the Doctor goes off in search of a mirror and clothes that fit - jeans and a t-shirt and a blue suit jacket. He still wears his old Chuck Taylors; his feet are miraculously the same exact size_  
_

_Dear Diary,_

_Jason dead. Moved back into my old room._

_Doctor got makeover. Keeps looking in mirrors and grinning at himself. Never met anyone so happy to have orange hair._

_Note to self: Need new clothes, again._

* * *


	6. Snowflakes

A/N - We're just about halfway through, now. There are 13 sections all in all. I rather like this one.

Big hugs to everyone reading.

* * *

VI. _Snowflakes_

A couple months after his regeneration and Jason's death, they are back to their normal system of getting into trouble and scraping their way out of it again, but Anna is acting strangely.

One moment she is laughing and teasing, the next she is bawling in some obscure corner of the TARDIS. She _yells _at him, which she used to only do on occasion when she was really annoyed, but she does it almost daily now.

At first, he attributes it to his regeneration. He's caught her staring at him, out of the corner of her eye, and she sometimes flinches slightly when he turns to look at her. Rose reacted in much the same way, and he can only hope that Anna will grow accustomed to it.

Then, he catches her eating Greek olives at what is her equivalent of two o'clock in the morning, which cannot be logically blamed on him. When he begins to get the occasional, vague feeling that there's a _third _person aboard, his suspicions are all but confirmed.

He's not particularly eager to bring it up - if he's right, things are about to get horribly complicated - so the Doctor decides to wait for the right moment before broaching the subject with his companion.

"So," he says, as Anna throws up spectacularly all over yet another alien hell-bent on killing them. "Am I gonna hafta put a 'Baby on Board' sticker on the TARDIS?"

Coincidentally, the exact chemical composition of Anna's vomit is such that some of their attacker's enzymes are taken out of their optimal pH ranges and promptly begin to denature, providing just the sort of distraction that they desperately need to run away.

Over the years, Anna has perfected the art of glaring at him and running for her life at the same time. "Doctor," she grits out. "Can we talk about this _after_ we blow up the Nazi aliens?"

- - -

The secret Nazi base explodes quite spectacularly. They watch from a distance, spellbound even though they've seen (read: caused) many, many explosions over the years. Explosions are like snowflakes: no two are exactly the same.

"You gonna make me leave, Doctor?" Anna asks quietly, white snow clinging to her hair, sticking on her cheeks and eyelashes.

Make Anna leave? The concept is ridiculous. He reaches out a hand and finds hers and clutches it, a bit too tightly, maybe. "No. But our life isn't really child-friendly, Anna."

Anna is a time-traveler. She has been the host of the parasite and the companion of the Doctor; she's seen the inside of the TARDIS and the bedroom of a lost girl. She's watched her father and her lover die.

It's been years since she left behind homework and boys and reality TV, but the Doctor can't quite believe that the possessed teenager who pointed an assault rifle at him is now an adult about to have her own child.

"I know," she sighs. "We'll figure somethin' out, right?"

"Right."

Now would be an excellent time for a brilliant plan to strike.

_Dear Diary_, reads Anna's diary, _What now?_


	7. Life, Death, and the Truth About Forever

VII. _Life, Death, and the Truth About Forever_

The baby, Anna's baby, is born as the TARDIS careens through time and space.

Demons and werewolves and Daleks, the Doctor can handle. Childbirth, not so much. There are reasons why he's banned from maternity wards throughout the history of the universe.

"Never again," he declares firmly. "I'm layin' down the law. No more births in the TARDIS." The baby, Anna's baby, stares up at him from the crook of his arm, and the Doctor falls in love.

He can hear the TARDIS laughing at him.

"She needs a name," Anna says, bringing up the subject that has been much-debated these past months.

"You'll think'a something," he replies, cooing at the baby, Anna's baby, in a most unDoctor-like fashion.

"We could just call her 'the Baby'," Anna teases. "The title-as-name thing's worked for you."

_I wasn't always the Doctor_, he thinks but doesn't say. _I had a name once._

He laughs at Anna's joke, and he cuddles the baby, Anna's baby, and he tries not to wonder if he's still a dad even though his daughter doesn't exist anymore, never existed.

- - -

"I been with you too long to still believe in forever," Anna says, with the smile that could illuminate the dark side of the moon, the smile of a girl, a woman, who has seen and walked and known and _lived_. "But if I coulda had anythin', any one thing, last forever, I woulda wanted it to be us."

She pauses.

"You'll take care'a the baby."

When you're as old as the Doctor, you don't believe in forever.

He knew when he took Anna's hand, that very first day, how it would end: her gone and him alone. One heart hoped that she would leave the TARDIS, eventually, so he wouldn't have to watch her die; the other just wanted her to stay, forever, for as long as a human could.

And it happens as he always knew it would:

Anna dies. He lives.

That's not the end of the story.

* * *

Please leave some feedback. . . Reviews are love! 


	8. Tears of a Time Lord

_A/N -_ Gotta say, I got the warm fuzzies from all those reviews on the last section. . . they were almost like a Christmas present.

In this section we're kind of segueing from Anna and the Doctor to the Baby and the Doctor. . . And yes, the Baby is named!

* * *

VIII. _Tears of a Time Lord_

How do you choose other people to raise your child?

One of his hearts tells him that the baby, Anna's baby, is not his child. The other one insists that she is, she's his, just like Anna was his.

He watches the family for a month. Just to be sure, absolutely sure, he tells himself, but really he is delaying the inevitable, clinging to what moments he can with his youngest-ever companion. It's not that bad, really, taking care of her - he doesn't need much sleep and neither, apparently, does she. But he finds himself waiting for aliens to attack or bombs to fall or even for himself to trip on the stairs and drop her, and he knows that the baby, Anna's baby, cannot stay on the TARDIS.

He takes her to Boston, where Anna lived, but the year is 2011 and the country has mostly gotten over the insanity of the previous decade.

Their names are Beth and Andrew.

People are easily persuaded when you put a baby in their arms, the Doctor has noticed, and he almost considers using this thought to justify keeping the baby, Anna's baby, before admitting that when he thinks _people_ he really means _humans_. He tells them that the girl's parents are dead (true) and that it's too complicated to go through official channels (true) and that it's perfectly alright if they say no, because he's got other families lined up (not so true).

"What's her name?" Beth asks, as the Doctor pulls the modified psychic papers out of his pocket. She has not quite gotten over the strangeness of him: a ginger-haired young man wearing thick glasses ("Weezer" glasses, Anna had teased once, to his confusion) and a Pink Floyd t-shirt under a suit jacket, shown up on their doorstep trying to give them a baby.

"Sophie." He doesn't know why he thinks of it, but the name's as good as any. He looks down at the fake birth certificate as he hands it to Andrew and there it is already, on the first line: _Sophie_.

Sophie, he remembers suddenly, was the name of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's wife. They killed her, too.

They've agreed and Beth is holding the baby, Anna's baby, as if she is the girl's mother (_she is, now_) and there's nothing left to do now but say goodbye.

The Doctor holds out his arms for the baby, Anna's baby. "Can I. . .?"

"Of course," Beth says, passing him the infant and then dragging her husband out of the room to give him some privacy.

It is time to say goodbye and the Doctor can feel even more cracks forming in his fractured hearts. After this, he'll move on, putting them back together with spit and prayer and chewing gum, and duct tape if he's got any, and keep going until yet another stupid ape comes along and breaks them all over again.

"I know I promised your mum I'd take care of you, Sophie," he says to her, even though she's just a baby and can't possibly understand him. He tells himself that infants can't glare accusingly, but he could swear that Anna's baby is doing just that. "This is the only way I can do that." He commits her little face to memory and forbids himself to cry, but does anyway, because Anna always said that it was okay to cry sometimes. He has Anna's permission and since this is about Anna and Anna's baby he figures he can listen to her.

The Doctor weeps.

His tears fall on Sophie's face and it's time to give her away for good, for good. He calls Beth and Andrew back over and the moment he puts the baby, Anna's baby, into Beth's arms she begins to squall, wailing with all the might her little lungs can muster.

"Her mother's name was Anna," he hears himself say, "if you ever wanna tell her."

On the kitchen table in the TARDIS is Anna's diary. On the very last page, following many blank ones, is a large heart drawn in black ballpoint pen.

_Anna_, the Doctor thinks, and smiles.

* * *

Still not the end of the story, though. :-) 


	9. Variations on a Theme

IX. _Variations on a Theme_

_Crash_.

The Doctor grins brightly at Luke. "We're here!"

Various pots and pans have just fallen out of the open cupboard and onto his head, so understandably Luke does not share the Doctor's enthusiasm. "Where's 'here'? Planet Spaceball?"

"Maybe."

"Which means, 'I don't gotta clue where or when we are.'" This is Luke's second tour in the war that is the Doctor's existence, and he is well aware that 95 percent of the Doctor's success is due to smoke and mirrors.

"Maybe." The Doctor cheerfully bounds down the corridor, through the control room, and out the TARDIS doors. Luke follows him into the sunlight, scowling.

"We're in Boston. We just _left_ Boston," he says, annoyed. He has the right to be. Born several hundred years in humankind's future, Luke recently spent over a decade in the city. He passed the time teaching eighth-grade science and discreetly keeping an eye on a certain child in whom they both have a vested interest. Luke, too, had mourned Anna.

"Nothing passes you by," the Doctor mutters. He glances about and comes to several alarming conclusions at once. "Early thirties, I'd say." And since they're in Boston, the early thirties is not a good time to be.

"Which thirties?" Luke stares at the cars, the advertisements, the clothes the people are wearing. Humans have gone into space, and people have decided that this gives them permission to dress like characters out of 1950s science fiction. This decade will live on forever in history as the human race's direst fashion crisis.

"Twenty-thirties." He's taken off at a brisk pace down the sidewalk, Luke trailing after him in confusion.

"How d'you know?" he presses. "And where are we going?"

The Doctor ignores his companion. Purposefully, he comes up behind a young woman walking down the sidewalk and grabs her hand. Startled, she looks at him in confusion.

"Sophie," he says. "Run."

- - -

The Doctor does not have time to reflect on his utter idiocy, but he's definitely going to at first opportunity.

"What the hell?" Luke demands. "Sophie?"

The Doctor, trying to drag Sophie in the direction of the TARDIS, snaps, "It's April 9th. _2032_. And we're in _Boston_."

Luke stares at him for a moment, obviously trying to dig up long-forgotten history lessons. The Doctor can tell that he's made the connection when all color drains from his face. "How much time d'we have?"

The Doctor peers at Sophie's wristwatch. "Two minutes," he says tightly. Luke's face transitions from ghostly white to sickly grey.

"We gotta get outta here."

"You think?" the Doctor shoots back.

Sophie yanks her hand out of his grip. "Whattayou, _retahded_?" There is Anna in her face, Anna in her eyes, Anna in her voice with that ridiculous Boston accent, and in her attitude there is something all her own.

"Sophie," he says shortly, "we _really_ don't have time for this."

"What's _this_?" she demands. "Why do you keep following me?" Oh, c'mon. He hasn't been _following _her. Just. . . keeping an eye on her, that's all.

For seemingly the first time, she notices Luke and goes pale. "Oh, my God. Mr. Luke. . .?"

He needs to convince her to come with them, and he needs to do it now. "Your birth mother's name was Anna," the Doctor tells her firmly. "I knew her. I know you." He is really saying: _I know who you are. Come with me or you'll never find out._

"_Doctor!_" Luke says urgently, glancing anxiously at the sky.

The Doctor holds out his hand to the baby, Anna's baby, who is not a baby anymore or even a child, who is older than Anna was when she first met the Doctor. "We're getting out of here," he says. "_Now_."

She takes his hand and they run.

* * *

A/N - Apologies for introducing Luke so suddenly. I've got a separate piece about his history with the Doctor in the works, so maybe I'll put that up when this one's over. Thoughts? 


	10. Big Blue Box, Reprise

A/N - Okay, don't really know why it took me so long to put this bit up. I really like the earlier parts better than these ones, but, yeah.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

* * *

**Denaturation**X. _Big Blue Box, Reprise_

Sophie dashes into the TARDIS and almost dashes back out again in sheer shock. He sees the wonder in her eyes and she looks so much like her mother looked at fifteen, standing in the console room for the first time.

"The inside. . ."

"Is bigger than the outside, yes."

And then, before anyone can say anything else, there is a catastrophic **_BOOM_**. It is as if the universe itself has burst open like an overinflated balloon. The thunderous noise envelopes them and they do not hear it so much as they exist within it.

Sophie slides down to the floor, hands fisted over her ears and eyes squeezed shut. Luke, horrified, falls beside her and wraps his arm about her shoulder, clinging for dear life.

The Doctor, who has gone through worse than this before, braces himself against the console and curses his stupidity. He remembers a different explosion, one that decimated his world just as this one is destroying Sophie's.

The TARDIS pitches slightly to one side.

And just as quickly, it is over.

The moment of consummate noise is followed by one of profound, pervasive silence. Nothing makes a sound and nothing moves, as if the Earth itself has frozen in shock.

Even though he can feel the planet spinning beneath his feet, the Doctor thinks about absolute zero, the point at which everything stops.

- - -

Stunned quiet reigns in the TARDIS for what seems like forever.

Luke lets his arm fall off Sophie's shoulders and bows his head. "That's it, then," he says quietly.

"That's it," the Doctor agrees.

Slowly, Sophie rises onto shaky legs. Her entire body trembles as she glances wildly about the console room and then runs for the door.

The Doctor moves but Luke is closer. "You can't go out there," he says, leaping in front of her. He's badly shaken, the Doctor can see, and his usual sarcastic cynicism is nowhere to be found.

Sophie simply stares at him.

"He's right," the Doctor says from his place by the console, and the young woman whips around as if she's only just remembered his presence. "Unless, of course, you want to die. Painfully."

Luke glares at him. "Not funny, Doctor."

"Not tryin' to be," he tells his companion, not looking away from Sophie. "A fifty megaton nuclear bomb just went off out there," he tells her. "You don't want to go outside."

"A nuke."

The Doctor nods. "Yes. A nuke."

"A _nuke_," she repeats.

"No, 'fifty megaton nuclear bomb' is really just another word for _banana_," Luke says, exasperated. By some unspoken agreement, the Doctor and Sophie have a brief cease-fire to glare at him before returning to their staring contest. . . staring battle . . . war . . .

"I wanna know," she declares at last, voice a little less unsteady now, "how you know my name, how you know my mother's name, and what the _hell_'s goin' on here."

The Doctor doesn't avert his gaze. "I know your name," he says, slowly for dramatic effect, "because _I_ named you. Only about a year ago, actually -"

Blank stare.

"- I know your mother's name because I knew your mother. She asked me to look after you when she died, but the TARDIS is no place for a baby, so I found you a family." Pause. "I hope you liked the one I picked out-"

Blank stare.

"-and what's goin' on is my spaceship-slash-time-machine landed us here right about five minutes before the place got nuked, at which point I realized that I'd left you, as a baby, in a city that I'd forgotten was going to have a bomb dropped on it roughly twenty years later. By the way, if you hadn't gathered, I'm a time-traveller, which is why it's been two decades for you but only about a year for me since I gave you to Beth and Andrew. I swear that there are still bloodstains in my Infirmary."

This is all said rather quickly and with the Doctor's usual annoyingly bombastic manner, as he fiddles with the TARDIS controls and avoids meeting her eyes.

"Ah, time travel," Luke comments to no one in particular.

_I can't believe I forgot about the nuke_, the Doctor thinks, as Sophie's staring continues unabated. _Anna would slaughter me if she were here._

When Sophie does speak, her voice is remarkably calm, which means she's either gone into shock or convinced herself that she's about to wake up. "Are you my dad, then?"

The Doctor swears he can hear Anna, Rose, and Sarah Jane, all laughing uproariously together at his expense. The TARDIS rattles in her version of mirth. He stares at Sophie, blinks, scratches his neck, and opens and closes his mouth several times before babbling out: "Uh. . . no. No. Er, no. No, I'm not - no." Then, as Luke sniggers uncontrollably, bursts out, "You're _human!_"

Anna blinks. "You're not?"

"No," the Doctor says curtly, with as much dignity as he can manage.

"You look human."

"I do that."

"But I am. Human."

"Yes."

"And this's a time machine."

"And spaceship. The TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. TARDIS." He pats his ship affectionately, pleased. Sophie believes him; now she's just filling in the empty spaces.

"It's a big blue box," she says flatly.

"Basically."

Sophie nods to herself, absorbing this for a moment. "Okay," she says. "And who're you?"

He grins. "I'm the Doctor."

"Okay," Sophie says again. She was born on the TARDIS, and the Doctor has held her and named her and wept over her, and so despite her parentage the Doctor thinks that there is part of her that is not quite human, part of her that recognizes that this is where she belongs. "Why's my eighth-grade science teacher here?"

"Luke? He travels with me."

"Oh." She glances at both of them, considers. "You make a good couple."

Luke chokes. The Doctor laughs - he can see the wicked glint in her eyes. On impulse, he sweeps Sophie, Anna's baby, into a hug. "Welcome home, Sophie."


	11. Vogon Poetry

A/N - Ah! I tried to fix a few typos in this chapter and found that I'd accidently replaced it with the previous section. Oh no! This is the true chapter 11. Sorry! (Feb. 6 2007)

* * *

_XI. Vogon Poetry_

"You read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Daddy Dearest?" Sophie asks idly one day, dangling her legs off the edge of the grill floor in the console room.

"Sure. Have you?" The Doctor is weighing the merits of cinnamon gum versus spearmint when used as an adhesive. "And don't call me that."

Ignoring the imperative, Sophie replies, "We read it in high school. For 20th Century Lit., junior year."

"Huh. How'd you like it?"

"I liked it, but the teacher was all symbolism this, theme that." She scowls. "We hadta write a paper on it. The symbolism. Most kids did 42. I did the whale."

Silly apes. They always miss the point, don't they? Amused, the Doctor prompts, "What'd it mean?" Cinnamon, he decides. "Can I have your gum?"

Sophie extracts the gum from her mouth and hands it to him. "I said it didn't mean anythin', he just put it in for laughs." She sighs. "I flunked English junior year."

"That's a pity." As he positions the gum, the Doctor adds, "Why the trip down memory lane?"

"I was thinkin'," Sophie says. "You're Ford and I'm Arthur." She sighs and the Doctor wonders if it would have been fairer for her home to have been destroyed by Vogons than by stupid apes who forgot what they were fighting over just a few centuries later. One day he will tell her that he, too, cannot go back home.

But not today.

"Who's Luke?" he asks, deadpan.

Sophie grins, catlike. "Marvin?"

- - -

There is nothing more alarming than the sounds of the swimming pool being used.

He hardly ever uses the swimming pool. There's something so undignified about stripping down to a pair of swim trunks, jumping into water, and . . . frolicking.

The Doctor does not frolic. At least, this regeneration doesn't. He does, admittedly, recall frolicking during his last regeneration; but then, his previous self had been rather bouncy and splashy and, well, frolicky.

Not anymore. Oh, no. Now he regards any and all frolicking with a great deal of suspicion and so it is his job to Investigate.

With his ear to the door, he listens to Sophie exclaim with a laugh and a splash, "She didn't!"

"She did!" Luke insists, and the Doctor groans, wondering which sordid story Luke is telling. "A banana, I swear to God."

Oh. That story.

"My mother?" Sophie sounds both delighted and scandalized.

"That's right." Luke lets out a laugh. "Put the fear of the Doctor into many, your mother."

"She was kinda his sidekick, huh?" It occurs to the Doctor that he should be the one in there, telling Sophie years' worth of Anna stories, but it's too soon. Luke had well over a decade to mourn, during his years in Boston after Anna's death. The Doctor has had a year.

It's ironic, he decides. When Anna was a bright, eager teenager, he'd brought her aboard in hopes that she could cover the ache that Rose had left, thinking that she and Henrik would have a few adventures and then go home. He hadn't expected her to stay so long or to leave whole new cracks in his often-fractured hearts.

"For awhile," Luke answers Sophie. "He always finds another."

They all leave. But even when he finds a new companion, he never finds "another." There will never be another Sarah Jane, another Rose, another Anna.

There's only the next companion and the newest ache.


	12. States of Undress

_A/N _- Apologies for taking so long with this chapter. I decided to rewrite the last two parts, and it took me awhile to get something that I was happy with.

This was written with **Zenna**'s review in mind; she suggested a little more characterization and I tried to comply. Please tell me how I did. Concrit is welcome.

* * *

**Denaturing**

_XII. States of Undress_

The Doctor is not eavesdropping. He's Investigating. After all, someone has to make sure that the No More Babies On the TARDIS Rule is being followed.

It sounds as if Luke is telling Doctor stories. The Doctor realizes that they seem to have a lot of time for reminiscing and makes a mental note to find some trouble to keep them busy.

"I was twenty-one," Luke explains. "Government jail cell. That was back when he wore pinstripes." Ah, the government jail. Hadn't that been right after the Colosseum? All he can remember is that Anna was rather annoyed for about a month after the whole bit with the tiger.

"Pinstripes," Sophie repeats.

Luke laughs. "Brown pinstripes. With Chuck Taylors."

The Doctor scowls at the closed kitchen door. He has the feeling he's being made fun of and he doesn't like it one bit. He sincerely hopes that they never find out about some of his previous outfits.

Whatever happened to that scarf, anyway? That was a good scarf.

"And you went traveling with him after that?"

"Not right after. I ran into them again a couple years later, couldn't escape a second time."

Jeez. He saves the man's life, _twice_, shows him the universe, feeds him and puts a roof over his head, and what thanks does he get? None. You'd think that the Doctor _forced_ him onto the TARDIS.

It's not _his_ fault that Luke couldn't resist Anna's puppy-dog eyes.

"What blew up that time?" The way she speaks makes it sound like all the Doctor does is run about blowing things up. _Really_.

"A hospital."

_You were there_, the Doctor recalls. He wonders if Luke will tell her that. It had been Sophie's first adventure, if one didn't count the Childbirth Debacle an adventure simply on the grounds that it had been intensely frightening for all involved. For some reason Anna had insisted on bringing the baby to a real medical doctor after that.

"He blew up a _hospital?_"

"No. It was evil scientists."

"Oh." Pause. "He's not an evil scientist?"

"_Other_ evil scientists," Luke amends.

It's times like these that the Doctor wonders why the hell Luke ever came traveling with him in the first place. More importantly, he asks himself why the hell Luke hasn't been shoved out an airlock yet. His ninth self would have dumped him into a black hole for being criminally annoying. Not to mention ungrateful.

"So how'd you end up in B - Boston?"

There is a slight tremor in her voice when she mentions the city. One day he'll have to talk to Sophie about What Happened To Boston. He's not looking forward to it.

He also needs to Stop Thinking In Capital Letters. Damn. Things have really gone downhill: he's the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, the Last Time Lord, and he Can't Stop Thinking In Capitals.

It all went wrong, he decides, when he stopped liking tea. He misses tea. Stupid Bostonians and their Anti-Tea Tyranny.

"Anna died." The laughter falls out of Luke's voice, and his characteristic sarcasm is gone. "I wanted to look after you. So. . . Boston."

"Until the science museum," says Sophie, referring to the third time that the Doctor and Luke met by chance. She'd been an eighth-grader on a field trip then, and Luke had been passing the time teaching middle school science.

There's a long pause. "'Yeah."

"You couldn't escape a third time?"

Luke lets out a harsh little bark of a laugh. "Nobody escapes."

The Doctor breaks off his Investigation. Eavesdropping is beginning to make him feel sick.

- - -

Sophie has wanderlust.

She's very different from Luke, in that regard. Finding Luke on the TARDIS isn't difficult at all; he has his favorite haunts and he sticks to them, for the most part. The number of places where Luke could be at any given time is finite.

Not so, with Sophie. She sets off down the halls and loses herself in the TARDIS's endless twists and tricks. There's no destination that she has in mind, not as far as he can tell, nothing specific that she's hoping to find. But he can't shake the feeling that she's searching for something, someplace, with only the vaguest sense of what it might be.

She can't sit still, the Doctor has discovered, whether they're out adventuring or having a quiet day in. He knows that feeling all to well, the constant itch to keep moving, keep seeing.

Most of the time he's pleased by her curiousity. He would have been quite disappointed if Anna's baby had turned out to be another boring, unimaginative ape. But when he finds Sophie meandering aimlessly about in a state of undress, he can't help thinking that this wandering habit has his downside.

The Doctor heaves a sigh, just to let her know that he is Unhappy, Damn It. "And where have you been?" he scolds, arms crossed. "We landed an hour ago." He's found somewhere dangerous and full of Trouble, and he's anxious to run out into the middle of the crisis and fix it.

Sophie looks up at him and blinks. "I was lookin' for you," she says, as if she's slowly waking from a dream.

"I was in the console room. You know that." He scowls for good measure.

Distantly, Sophie answers, "I found the console room." Screwing up her face in thought, she adds, "But I think it was the wrong one."

"Well, you just go right back down to the wardrobe and finish getting dressed," the Doctor instructs briskly, feeling like a parent with a recalcitrant child. He frowns as a new thought occurs to him. "You _do_ realize that you can't go out like that, right?"

Seeming to snap out of her daze, Sophie glances down at her chemise and corset. "I'm not gonna go out like this, Daddy Dearest."

"Don't call me that." The Doctor sighs heavily again, because he doesn't think that she got the message the first time. "And why aren't you dressed?"

Sophie gives him a disdainful look which the Doctor interprets as the facial equivalent of _duh_. "I need you to tie up my corset."

He chokes, wanting absolutely nothing to do with Sophie's undergarments. "Can't you do it yourself?"

Sophie heaves a sigh of her own. "Well, if you don't wanna. . . I'll just go find Luke and ask him to do m- _it_." She smiles, radiating false innocence.

The Doctor stares at her devious smirk and moans. _I held you. I fed you. I changed your diapers, for Rassilon's sake_, he laments. _What went wrong?_

He feels absolutely betrayed, because right now a perverse little piece of his mind is working very, very quickly on the following thought:

_Oh, she'll go find Luke all right and for once it won't take her three hours to get from point A to point B, and she'll bat her eyes at him and he will be helpless in the face of her Wiles and then somehow the corset will be _untied_ rather than tied and I'll never be able to look either of them in the face again and then Sophie will start throwing coffee cups at me and Luke will be gutted by a swamp monster and she'll want me to get her blue rutabagas at three o'clock in the morning in feudal China and then there will be blood and other - fluids - all over my infirmary_.

No. Not again.

"You are a Brat," he informs Sophie, pronouncing the capital letter clearly, and ties up the laces with the most complicated knots he can divise. He considers giving them an extra tug, just for revenge's sake, but decides against it at the last minute. After all, in order to run for her life she'll have to be able to breathe.

He goes back to the wardrobe with her, to make sure she doesn't get lost again before putting on her gown.

The last thing the Doctor needs is for Luke to find her wandering around in a state of undress.

- - -


	13. Last One Standing

_A/N_ - Okay, originally this was supposed to be the last post, but I noticed that it was rather long and worked better split into separate section/chapter thingies.

So there's one more installment after this one, all ready and written. Expect it today or tomorrow, hopefully.

Big thanks to my reviewers, especially Uberscribbler, whose insightful comments gave me the ideas for this section.

* * *

_  
XIII. Last One Standing_

The screams of Gallifrey echo in the Doctor's dreams.

He jolts up and out of the nightmare, hearts pounding loud and hard in his ears, the screams reverberating, high and terrified.

The Doctor breathes in and out, steadying his shaking body, but the screaming continues.

Sophie.

In a blink, he's out of bed and out the door, dashing down the corridor in his Pink Floyd pajama pants. Not Sophie, he prays to whoever may be listening.

The TARDIS, his blessed beautiful TARDIS, takes him right to Sophie's door. Normally he wouldn't dare go in; he may constantly drag his companions into danger and near-certain death, but he respects their privacy.

But now, he doesn't pause, bursting through the door fully prepared to thwart the Menace threatening Sophie and Save the Day. Well, Night.

On the bed, Luke has Sophie in a firm hold as she flails out, sobbing and screaming herself hoarse. Rage pounds in the Doctor's blood. He seizes Luke, punching him hard and hurling him to the floor, ready to kill the man in the most painful way he can devise.

With a hand on his bleeding and probably broken nose, Luke gasps, "What the hell? Are you insane?"

The Doctor looms over him like an impending hurricane, the Oncoming Storm.

Behind him, Sophie's shrieking subsides into panicked, petrified hyperventilation. Glancing at her, the Doctor notes that her eyes are glassy, unseeing; her entire body trembles as if she's in the throes of a nightmare.

The Doctor hesitates for the first time.

In a nasal, outraged voice, Luke is shouting, "She's having a nightmare, you crazy bastard! I was trying to calm her down! What did you think?! That I would do that to Sophie? To anyone? Jesus Christ, you've lost your mind!"

The ensuing pause is so pregnant that the Doctor wonders if it's having twins.

Oh, he thinks.

Somewhat guiltily, he regards his rather bloody companion, then looks over to Sophie, prioritizing. Closing his eyes, he tries to stem the flow of fury and adrenaline coursing through him. When he's reasonably certain he's not going to tackle the next person who speaks, he sits down carefully beside Sophie, putting an awkward arm around her. She turns her head into his shoulder, bawling.

Luke is staring, his expression trying to decide whether to be furious or dumbfounded. "You broke my nose!" he wheezes.

"Er," the Doctor stalls, wishing for a demon or Dalek or werewolf to come snarling into the room. Pure, unadulterated evil, he can deal with. Sobbing females and righteously indignant companions, not so much. "I wasn't thinking."

Luke utters a choice phrase regarding bovine defecation.

_Take evasive action! Take evasive action!_

He wraps his arms around Sophie a little tighter, very gently kissing the top of her hair. "It's okay, Sophie," he says, feeling terribly inadequate. "Shh. It's okay." Looking at Luke, he asks quietly, "Do you know what this is about?"

Luke tries to snort derisively, but his broken nose doesn't cooperate. There's quite a bit of blood pooling on the carpet; the Doctor sincerely hopes that the TARDIS will fix the stain before Sophie sees it. "Oh, I don't know. It's not like she's been traumatized recently or anything -" The death glare he's giving the Doctor is worthy of Jackie Tyler.

Oh. Oh, damn. What Happened To Boston.

_What did you expect?_ he berates himself. He recalls all of Sophie's odd behavior, the way she sometimes wanders into clearly dangerous situations and lingers just a moment too long before running for life, the vacant look as she stares into space and the three mostly-healed cuts on the inside of her forearm that he'd told himself were from alien claws_. She lost everything. Her entire world. You, of all people, should have known._

"I'm sorry," he says, to Sophie, to Luke, to Anna, for being unworthy of all of them. "I'm so sorry."

- - -

He stands in the doorway and watches them for a moment, assessing the situation.

Sophie and Luke are talking quietly over barely-touched coffee mugs. She is pale, nervous, stripped of the brave front she's put up in front of him for months now. He is concerned, gentle. . . angry. Oh yes, the Doctor muses when the human man looks over and glares at him with more venom than Jackie on a bad day. Definitely angry. The splint and white gauze on his nose don't seem to be improving his mood.

Following Luke's gaze, Sophie turns her eyes up to the Doctor and quickly looks down again; she stares into her mug as if it contains all the secrets of the universe. Luke whispers something to her and she nods, a little tearfully. He hesitates, squeezes one of her hands, and stands.

He doesn't speak as he passes the Doctor, but his thoughts are being broadcast so strongly that it is possible that he wants the Doctor to pick up on them.

I'llkillyoukillyoubastardhurtherandyoudiedie-

The Doctor watches him go, then takes his place across from Sophie at the table. He touches Luke's mug and finds it stone cold.

Sophie bites her lip, still trying to scry the future in her coffee. "You know," the Doctor comments inanely, channeling his tenth self, "you can tell fortunes by reading coffee grounds? 'Course, some people use tea leaves, but I prefer coffee, myself. Don't like tea anymore, it's Anna's fault, really. What do you lot have against tea, anyway?" It's so easy to talk about nothing; it's when the words count that he can't find anything to say.

There is a long, awkward silence. The Doctor realizes that he has chosen the wrong tactic.

"I talked to Luke last night," the Doctor tries again.

When Sophie speaks, her voice is quiet, vulnerable as an exposed throat, and it breaks the Doctor's hearts. This isn't what Anna had wanted for her. This wasn't what he had wanted for her. "It's not your fault, Doctor. Luke, he just. . . he feels helpless, and he lashes out."

"You should have told me." And if she had, he would have stuck his fingers in his ears and turned away, singing loudly to drown out her voice. Guilt, the Doctor's old friend, twists the knife in his gut a little harder.

Her hair falls into her face and he wants to push it away, so that he can see her. "I didn't want you to leave me behind." She pulls her long sleeves farther down, over her wrists and palms. His eyes are drawn magnetically to her forearms.

"I wouldn't do that." When did he learn to lie, so easily and so well, that he can say that with a straight face? How dare he tell Sophie, of all people, that he would not leave her?

Sophie gives voice to his thoughts, and he wonders if she isn't a little bit psychic. "You have before."

Accusation, he could have handled. He's used to being blamed for things, and certainly he deserves it now. Sophie doesn't accuse. She simply states it, perfunctory, just a fact to support her argument: you have before.

He has. He's left people, left her. He's run and run and run until finally what he's fleeing is gone and he can no longer go back. It's part of what he is. He's the Doctor, and he's a damn fool.

For a long, long moment, he stares at Sophie, knowing what he should say but putting it off for just a little bit longer. For a little bit longer he can be invulnerable, inhuman, unfeeling, instead of a scarred, hardened meddler held together with spit and prayer and chewing gum

"My people are dead," he confesses quietly, admitting to a human that they are the same: lost, broken remnants of destroyed homes. "All of them." On the insides of his eyelids his world is in flames, his daughter dying, Susan dying, Romana dying. People he'd hated, people he'd loved, burning, and the empty place in his head where they should be hurts more than a thousand regenerations. "Erased from Time completely, and I'm the only one left." The last word is barely a whisper; he feels the acidic tears burning in his tear ducts but refuses to let them out.

He looks up, meets Sophie's gaze for the first time. Her eyes are shocked, her mouth a round, gaping 'O'. He winces, knowing that she can read the culpability on his face -

"There were more of you?" she bursts, so comically horrified that the Doctor has to throw his head back and laugh, albeit despondently.

"Granted, I never liked them much, nor them me." He shakes his head. "But now that they're gone. . ."

"There's nothing you wouldn't give to see them one more time," Sophie finishes. She is crying, and the Doctor realizes that she is a braver person than he will ever be.

The corners of his lips tug up ruefully, and he offers up a prayer in hopes that it will help hold him together for a little while longer. Hesitantly, Sophie offers a small smile of her own, and they understand each other.

She takes his hand and holds on. "We'll be okay?" she says. He has the feeling it wasn't meant to be a question.

"We will." They will. Not yet, maybe not soon. But they will, someday. He grins, slightly - slightly crooked, slightly desperate, slightly mad. "I promise."


	14. Ends, Beginnings, and Makeshift Repairs

_A/N_ - This is the end.

Wow.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Once again, big thanks to all my reviewers. Your praise and your comments have helped me make this story so much better than it was before I started posting it. Thank you.

There's no definite plans for a sequel, but I'm not through with these characters yet, so keep an eye out for more of Anna, Luke, Sophie, and, of course, the Doctor.

Happy Valentine's Day!

* * *

_XIV. Ends, Beginnings, and Makeshift Repairs  
_

The Doctor is doing some very. . . _adventurous_ TARDIS repair. Replacing busted parts is rather difficult when most of them no longer have existing replacements. Fixing his ship takes creativity, nerves of steel, and copious amounts of duct tape.

"Sorry, old girl," he says, patting the console affectionately.

"Hey, who are you calling old?" Sophie demands with mock indignation as she enters the room. "She's thirty-five, tops."

"Hundred, maybe," the Doctor corrects, and takes in her appearance with an arched brow. She's the epitome of 2030s fashion: heavy boots, short skirt, and a metallic, impossibly shiny shirt with enormous shoulder pads. "Very practical."

She glances down ruefully. "Mom and I _always_ fought about my clothes. Sneakers and sweats would make her suspicious."

"I hate the thirties," the Doctor grouses. "You look like Eccentrica Gallumbits."

"Oi!" He recalls too late that Sophie's read that book. "And how would _you_ know?"

The Doctor shrugs, unashamed, and, with a glance at his repair work, decides that the TARDIS doesn't need _that_ particular wire there. Not _really_. It's much more important over _there_. That way they have a slightly better chance of not exploding. "Are you ready?" he asks Sophie. His Nerves of Steel are more like Nerves of Jello right now, so he puts down the slightly bent fork before he does something rash and the TARDIS makes him sleep on the roof.

She takes a steadying breath. "As I'll ever be."

He turns away from the console. "You know I can't go with you," he says, sticking his hands in his pockets. His t-shirt today reads _Trust Me, I'm A Doctor_. It's meant to be ironic. "Beth would recognize me. It's too dangerous."

She's close enough for him to reach out and touch, so he does, squeezing her hand gently. It's surprisingly hard for him to touch people in this regeneration. The last one was so _grabby_, hugging people all over the place and everything.

"I know," Sophie says. "We've been over this."

They have, but they're going over it again, Damn It. He really doesn't want to get eaten by a Reaper; once was quite enough. "Be very, very careful." He shouldn't be letting her do this. It's far, far too dangerous. Some day his inability to say no to blonde girls with Boston accents is going to get him into Serious Trouble.

Well, _more_ Serious Trouble.

"I will," Sophie promises, nervously pulling her sleeves over her wrists.

"And be quick. We're cutting it a bit close." As in, the bomb is going to drop soon. The Doctor doesn't want her to go through that again.

"I will." Her voice shakes.

The Doctor hesitates, then hugs her, remembering a time when she was just a baby in his arms, a beautiful little complication with a gooey smile, a tiny piece of purity in a life that had lacked innocence for a long time.

He's the Doctor and nothing he touches can walk away unscathed. He gave Sophie a home and hoped that she would be an exception, hoped that she would remain whole forever. It didn't work. Sophie is all grown up, and her scars mark her: _The Doctor was here_.

_I'm so sorry,_ _Anna_, he thinks, and lets Sophie go.

When she's nearly at the door, he stops her. "Sophie."

She turns, expression wary. "Yeah?"

"Repeat after me: I will not cause a paradox. . ."

Relaxing slightly, Sophie rolls her eyes and repeats, "I will not cause a paradox. . ."

". . . or otherwise destroy the time line. . ."

". . . or otherwise destroy the time line. . ."

". . . because if I do. . ."

". . . because if I do. . ."

". . .the Doctor will be Unhappy, Damn It."

". . .the Doctor will be Unhappy, Damn It." And bless her, she pronounces the capitals perfectly. "Satisfied?"

"Completely. Off you go, then!" She slips out and the Doctor settles back in his chair. "She'll be all right, won't she, girl?"

The TARDIS rumbles in agreement.

- - -

"Doctor."

The Doctor stops contemplating his repairs and looks up at Luke. "Yeah?" Things between them are more awkward than ever, but they'll muddle through. He hopes.

Luke shoves his hands into his pockets and scowls. "There's no aspirin anywhere on this ship," he says. His nose is not yet entirely healed.

He slants Luke a long look, considering. Making a decision, he says, "Of course not. Would you keep poison in _your_ medicine cabinet?"

Luke keeps his face neutral. "Poison, huh?"

He could have lied, but what was the point? It would be a sorry day indeed that he couldn't even trust his own companions not to try to kill him in his sleep. "Yup. One tablet and-" he makes a slashing gesture - "I'm done."

Luke stares at him for a long moment, and the temptation to read his mind is so very strong. The Doctor can never get a fix on what Luke is thinking. "Good to know," Luke says at last. "Just in case." He raises his eyebrows in challenge.

"You never know." The Doctor glances down at the partially-dismantled parts he's trying to fix. Inspiration strikes. _I really am a genius,_ he congratulates himself. "Can I have your shoelaces?"

"Uh," Luke says, blinking at the sudden change of topic. "Yeah, sure."

"Excellent. Now, where did I put that fork?"

A door slams. "It's on the console," Sophie says, in a voice like broken glass.

The Doctor jumps. "Sophie." He checks to make sure that Reapers aren't swooping down to eat him, finds himself safe, and grins. "How'd it go?"

Sophie is slumped against the door, shaking violently, her eyes faraway. The grin falls off his face. "I said goodbye," she whispers.

Thankfully, Luke gives her the hug that she looks like she desperately needs; the Doctor's already used up his daily quota. "Are you okay?"

"It's fine. I'm okay," she says distantly, then admits quietly, "I'm not okay."

It breaks his hearts to hear her say that. "We'll talk as soon as we're in the Vortex," he promises.

Sophie nods wearily. Luke slings her arm around her shoulder and leads her away. "Come on, I'll make us some tea." Over her head, the Doctor meets his gaze and nods his permission.

"Thanks," Sophie says. She glances back at the Doctor. "Get us out of here, Daddy Dearest."

"I told you not to call me that!" the Doctor yells at her back, but he laughs a bit as he does.

Sophie. Maybe he'll have a year with her, maybe two, maybe ten. One day she'll die and he'll live and he'll have to put together his hearts again, with spit and prayer and chewing gum, and duct tape if he's got any, and he'll have to keep going because he's afraid of what will happen when he stops.

One day, he'll be nothing but a tired old man, a denatured enzyme that can no longer catalyze a reaction. One or two or ten years with a friend will no longer outweigh the pain of watching her die, and he'll have run out of duct tape.

One day, he'll stop, and he'll die.

But not yet.

He fastens the fork into what is now its place, ties in Luke's shoelaces, and snaps the removed panel back into place. The TARDIS hums its approval.

Grinning like a madman, the Doctor starts up his ship and takes them out into the universe.

- FIN -


End file.
